Pages

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

More from Sans Souci Palace

Recap: B and I chaperoned the 8 Quisqueya seniors as they went on a trip to northern Haiti to visit the Citadelle and Sans Souci Palace, both built by Emperor Cristophe in the 1800's after the slave revolt that toppled Napoleon and the French colony in Haiti. This palace was his royal showpiece before it was destroyed by an earthquake. Someone told me Sans Souci means "no worries", like the Kreyol version of "hakuna matata" in Swahili.

I love this shot because there are people living and going about their daily lives literally in the middle of this incredible ruin. There were goats and pheasants (yes, the bird, that H is not an accident!) milling about inside the old walls, and this lady just going about her business.

Affectionately known as the Hanging Tree. Enemies of the emperor, beware. (Double points if you get the Harry Potter reference in that last sentence).

Statue of the Goddess of Drama outside the Sans Souci palace. When the United States invaded and occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1930 (did you know that happened? I didn't before I moved here...), some Marines shot off her nose and part of her breast. Grrr.

Literally 30 feet from the back of this incredible palace, behind the gorgeous church, is a neighborhood of little shacks. Can you imagine if there were slums one block from the pyramids? Maybe there are, I haven't been... it just seems so crazy, the contrast.

Original toilet. There was a board over this hole at one point.

Statues and clouds

Interesting buildings we saw on the drive away from the palace and Citadel. Once again, any dear Francophiles/Kreyol-lovers able to fill me in?

The northern part of Haiti has this interesting cactus I've never seen, and this enterprising homeowner made it into a very secure fence!

Friends

Get Our Updates

Subscribe Via Feed

Support

Why

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? -Micah 6

To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; To seek Him, the greatest adventure.-St. Augustine

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? -Mary Oliver

It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writings than to put one principle into practice. -Leo Tolstoy

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger; Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had.-C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia

No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There’s too much work to do. -Dorothy Day

The God of life summons us to life; more, to be lifegivers, especially toward those who lie under the heel of the powers. - Daniel Berrigan, Jesuit priest

The Bible is very easy to understand. But we as Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. - Kierkegaard

Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. -Paulo Freire, Brazilian advocate

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. -Lilla Watson, Aboriginal elder

Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.-Luke 13

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. - Abraham Lincoln

You are a land that is not cleansed. Its princes are like a roaring lion; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows within it. -Ezekiel 22

Jesus didn’t die to save us from suffering—he died to teach us how to suffer…. Sometimes I actually mean it. I’d rather die young, having lived a life crammed with meaning, than to die old, even in security, but without meaning. - Mev Puleo

Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning. -Frederick W. Faber

Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now. -Saint Teresa of Avila

If you will do away with the yoke of oppression... and if you will spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. -Isaiah 58

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others? -Martin Luther King, Jr.